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Sambian Peninsula

Sambian Peninsula

Samland or Sambia (Russian: semlyandskiy poluostrov, Polish: Sambia) is the name of a peninsula on the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Originally populated by a Baltic tribe which gave the area its name, Samland was for long a part of East Prussia. It was the last area where the Old Prussian language was spoken before becoming extinct at the beginning of the 18th century. Today the peninsula is in Russia's Kaliningrad Oblast and is mainly populated by Russians and Belarusians. Samland has two famous seaside resorts: Zelenogradsk and Svetlogorsk. For thousands of years amber has been found in the area, especially on the coast near Kaliningrad (formerly Königsberg), and an ancient trade route known as the Amber Road led from Prussia's "first city" of Truso all the way to the Black Sea and further east. Category:Peninsulas of Russia

Polish language

Polish (język polski, polszczyzna) is the official language of Poland. Polish is the main representative of the Lechitic branch of the Western Slavic languages. It originated in the areas of present-day Poland from several local Western Slavic dialects, most notably those spoken in Greater Poland and Lesser Poland. Polish was once a lingua franca in various regions of Central and Eastern Europe, mostly due to the political, cultural, scientific and military influence of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Although no longer having as great an influence outside of Poland, due in part to the dominance of the Russian language, it is still sometimes spoken or at least understood in western border areas of Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania as a second language.

Outside Influence

Polish has been influenced by contact with foreign languages (foremost Latin, Czech, French, German, Italian, Old Belarusian, Russian and recently it has been virtually bombarded by English, especially American English language elements). Many words have been borrowed from German as a result of heavy contact with Germans and the German language. This process has been going on since medieval times. Examples include szlachta (from German Adelsgeschlecht=nobility), rachunek (Rechnung=account), ratusz (Rathaus=town hall), burmistrz (Bürgermeister=mayor; word used only for mayors of smaller cities), handel (Handel=commerce), kac (Kater=hangover), kartofel (Kartoffel=potato; this word is dialectal: most Poles use the word 'ziemniak' for potato, but both words are understood anywhere), cukier (Zucker=sugar), kelner (Kellner=waiter) and malarz (Maler=painter; also the word 'malować' has entered Polish as the verb "to paint"). This is especially true of the regional dialects of Upper Silesia. There are also several words of French origin in the language, most likely dating from the Napoleon era, such as ekran (écran=screen), rekin (requin=shark), meble (meuble=furniture), fotel (fauteuil=armchair), plaża (plage=beach) and koszmar (cauchemar=nightmare). Some place names have also been adapted from French, such as the two Warsaw boroughs of Żoliborz (joli bord=beautiful riverside) and Mokotów (mon coteau=my cottage), as well as the suburb of Żyrardów (from the name Girard, with the Polish suffix -ów attached to form the town's name). Other words are borrowed from other Slavic languages, for example "hańba" and "brama" from Czech. When borrowing international words, Polish often changes their spelling. For example, the Latin suffix spelled '-tion' in English corresponds to '-cja'. To make the word plural, -cja becomes -cje. Examples of this include "inauguracja" (inauguration), dewastacja (devastation), konurbacja (conurbation) and konotacje (connotations). Also, the digraph 'qu' becomes 'kw' (kwadrat=quadrant; frekwencja=frequency). Since 1945, as the result of mass education and mass migrations (which affected several countries after the Second World War, with Poland being an extreme case) standard Polish has become far more homogeneous, although regional dialects persist, particularly in the south and south-west in the hilly areas bordering the Czech and Slovak Republics. In the western and northern territories, resettled in large measure by Poles from the territories annexed by the Soviet Union, the older generation speaks a dialect of Polish characteristic of the former eastern provinces.

Classification

The Polish language is the most widely-spoken of the Slavic language subgroup of Lechitic languages which include Kashubian (the only surviving dialect of Pomeranian language) and the extinct Polabian language. The three languages, along with Upper and Lower Sorbian, Czech and Slovak, belong to the West branch of Slavic languages. To English ears, it sounds virtually indistinguishable from Russian, and indeed the two languages have a very similar grammar; however, Polish and Russian speakers cannot understand each other without training due to a very different vocabulary. In other words, to a speaker of one, the other sounds to them about how the first stanza of the poem Jabberwocky would sound to an English-speaker.

Geographic distribution

Polish is mainly spoken in Poland. In fact, Poland is one of the most homogenous European countries in terms of its mother tongue, as close to 97% of Polish citizens declare Polish as their mother tongue. After the Second World War the previously Polish territories annexed by the USSR retained a large amount of the Polish population that was unwilling or unable to migrate toward the post-1945 Poland and even today ethnic Poles in Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine constitute large minorities. In Lithuania 9 percent of the population declared Polish to be their mother tongue. It is by far the most widely used minority language in the Vilniaus Apskritis (Vilnius region) (26% of the population, according to the 2001 census results), but it is also present in other apskritis. In Ukraine, Polish is most often used in the Lwów and Łuck regions. Western Belarus has an important Polish minority, especially in the Brześć and Grodno regions. There are also significant numbers of Polish speakers in Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Kazakhstan, Latvia, New Zealand, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, UAE, the UK and the United States. In the U.S. the number of people of Polish descent is over 9 million, see: Polish language in the United States, but most of them do not use Polish in their everyday communications. According to the United States 2000 Census, 667,414 Americans of age 5 years and over reported Polish as language spoken at home, which is about 1.4% of people who speak languages other than English or 0.25% of the U.S. population.

Dialects

It has several dialects that correspond in the main to the old tribal divisions; the most significant of these (in terms of numbers of speakers) are Great Polish (spoken in the west), Little Polish (spoken in the south and southeast), Mazovian (Mazur) spoken throughout the centre and east of the country, and Silesian spoken in the southwest. Mazovian shares some features with the Kashubian language, whose remaining speakers (53.000, according to 2002 Census) live around the city of Gdańsk near the Baltic Sea, predominantly to the west of the city. There are also several, now mostly extinct, regional dialects of Polish, including the Warsaw dialect. Small numbers of people in Poland also speak Belarusian, Ukrainian, and German as well as several varieties of Romany.

Phonology

Orthography

The Polish alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet but uses diacritics such as kreska (graphically similar to acute accent), superior dot and ogonek. Polish orthography also includes seven digraphs: Note that although the Polish orthography is mostly phonetic, some sounds may be written in more than one way:
- as either h or ch
- as either ż or rz (though rż denotes a cluster)
- as either u or ó
- some soft consonants as either ć, dź, ń, ś, ź, or ci, dzi, ni, si, zi Unlike in English, if consonants are doubled in script, it means that they are also doubled in pronunciation, for example: wanna , not ('bathtub'); motto , not .

Grammar

Polish is often said to be one of the most difficult languages for non-native speakers to learn; of course, this depends on one's native language. While difficult for English speakers, it is relatively easy for speakers of Russian and other Slavic languages. It has a complex gender system with five genders: neuter, feminine and three masculine genders (personal, animate and inanimate). There are 7 cases and 2 numbers. Nouns, adjectives and verbs are inflected, and both noun declension and verb conjugation are highly irregular. Every verb is either perfective or imperfective. Verbs often come in pairs, one of them imperfective and the other perfective (usually imperfective verb plus a prefix), but often there are many perfective verbs with different prefixes for single imperfective words. Tenses are: Movable suffix is usually attached to verb or to the most accented word of sentence, like question preposition. Sometimes the sentence may be emphasised with a particle -że- (-ż). So what have you done ? can be:
- Co zrobiliście?
- Coście zrobili?
- Cóżeście zrobili? (It could be derived from Cóż zrobiliście? which actually sounds odd and is not used) All the above examples show inflected forms of the verb "zrobić" for the subject "you" informal plural ("wy"). However, it is of note that none of the above examples include the subject itself. The inclusion of the subject is not necessary here because Polish is a pro-drop language. This means that a subject does not need to be used with an inflected verb. Instead, the reader or listener can tell which subject is implied through the type ending on the verb. This is different for each pronoun in Polish with the exceptions of on/ona/ono (he/she/it) which all have the same verb ending as each other and oni/one (they - of a group including male humans/they - of a group of people or things not including male humans) which also have the same verb ending as each other. Because the subject can be dropped, if the subject is used with an inflected verb it places the emphasis of the sentence on the subject. Of the above three examples, a native speaker would not include the subject in the middle sentence and would be unlikely to include a subject in the last one. The below examples show how the subject could be included in such sentences, where possible:
- Co wy zrobiliście?
- Coście zrobili? (a native speaker would not use a subject here)
- Co wyście zrobili? (this example places the stress strongly on "you" -- "wy"+ście)
- Co żeście zrobili? (this example includes the use of the że- particle - considered very colloquial) Past participle depends on number and gender, so 3rd person, singular past perfect tense can be:
- zrobił (he made/did)
- zrobiła (she made/did)
- zrobiło (it made/did)

Word order

From Wikibooks' Polish Language Course. Basic word order in Polish is SVO, however it is possible to move words around in the sentence, and to drop subject, object or even sometimes verb, if they are obvious from context. These sentences mean the same ("Ala (Alice) has a cat"):
- Ala ma kota
- Ala kota ma
- Kota ma Ala
- Ma Ala kota
- Kota Ala ma
- Ma kota Ala Yet only the first of these sounds natural in Polish, and others should be used for emphasis only, if at all. If a question mark is added to the end of those sentences they will all mean "does Ala have a cat?"; an optional 'czy' could be added to the begining but native speakers don't use it. The first is usually used as a reassuring question (really, Ala has a cat?). The fourth would be used as a standard question (does Ala have a cat?) If apparent from context, you can drop the subject, object or even the verb:
- Ma kota - can be used if it's obvious who is being talked about
- Ma - answer for "Czy Ala ma kota?" ("Does Ala have a cat?")
- Ala - answer for "Kto ma kota?" ("Who has a cat?")
- Kota - answer for "Co ma Ala?" ("What does Ala have?")
- Ala ma - answer for "Kto z naszych znajomych ma kota?" ("Which of our friends has a cat?") Note the marker "czy" which is used to start a yes/no question, much as the French use "est-ce que". There is a tendency in Polish to drop the subject rather than the object and you rarely know the object but not the subject. If the question was "Kto ma kota ?" (who has a cat ?), the answer should be "Ala" alone, without a verb. In particular, "ja" (I) and "ty" (you, singular), and also their plural equivalents "my" (we) and "wy" (you, plural), are almost always dropped.

Conjugation

Conjugation of "iść" ("walking" in Present Continuous):
- Ja idę – I am walking
- Ty idziesz – You are walking
- On/ona/ono idzie – He/she/it is walking
- My idziemy – We are walking
- Wy idziecie – You are walking (Plural)
- Oni/one idą – They are walking ("Oni" masculine, "one" feminine or neuter)

Vocabulary

Singular:
ja - I
ty - you
on - he
ona - she
ono - it
Plural:
my - we
wy - you (Plural)
oni - they (mixed group, both men and women)
one - they (group of only women and children or things) pies - dog
krowa - cow
świnia - pig
mucha - fly
osa - wasp
pszczoła - bee
drzewo - tree
kwiat - flower
Anglia - England
Szkocja - Scotland
Walia - Wales
Irlandia - Ireland
Wielka Brytania - Great Britain
Zjednoczone Królestwo - United Kingdom
Niemcy - Germany
Japonia - Japan
Stany Zjednoczone Ameryki - The United States of America
Francja - France
Hiszpania - Spain
Wenezuela - Venezuela
Polska - Poland
Polak - Pole
polski - Polish
Konstantynopolitańczykowianeczka - a little girl from Constantinople (the longest word in Polish)

Notes

1 You can hear the voice samples by clicking on the Polish example (ogg format).

See also


- Slavic languages
- Slavic peoples
- Poland
- Common phrases in Polish
- Wiktionary:Polish language
- Wikibooks:Basic Polish language course
- Swietokrzyskie Sermons

External links


- [http://slownik.web-monkeys.com/ słownik polski - polish dictionary]
- [http://www.polishgrammar.com/ 1,000 free multi-choice Polish grammar drills online]
- [http://www.polish-dictionary.com/ Basic English-Polish Dictionary]
- [http://www.polish-translations.com/PolishTranslation/ Articles about Polish Language]
- [http://www.ethnologue.org/show_language.asp?code=pol Polish language on Ethnologue]
- [http://www.fdicts.com/dictlist1.php?k1=75 All free Polish dictionaries]
- [http://sjp.pwn.pl/ PWN Polish-Polish Dictionary]
- [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Polish-english/ Webster's Online Polish-English Dictionary]
- [http://www.dict.pl Polish-English dictionary]
- [http://www.anglik.net/polish.htm Free Polish Translation]
- [http://www.poltran.com/ Online translation Polish<->English]
- [http://golem.umcs.lublin.pl/users/ppikuta/lessons/less0.htm Polish language course]
- [http://www.langsites.com/Polish.htm Polish On-line]
- [http://seelrc.org:8080/grammar/pdf/compgrammar_polish.pdf A Concise Polish Grammar, by Ronald F. Feldstein (110-page 600-KB pdf)]
- [http://polish.slavic.pitt.edu Univ. of Pittsburgh: Polish Language Website] Category:Languages of Poland Category:West Slavic languages ko:폴란드어 ja:ポーランド語 th:ภาษาโปแลนด์

Baltic Sea

The Baltic Sea is located in Northern Europe, from 53 deg. to 66 deg. north latitude and from 20 deg. to 26 deg. east longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainlands of Northern Europe, Eastern Europe, Central Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Öresund, the Great Belt and the Little Belt. Kattegat then continues in the Skagerrak into the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. The Baltic Sea is linked to the White Sea by the White Sea Canal and directly to the North Sea by the Kiel Canal. Kiel Canal

Name

The first one to name it the Baltic Sea was Adam of Bremen and he seems to have based it on a large island, Baltia, mentioned by Xenophon and located in northern Europe.

Etymology

It is possibly connected to the Germanic belt, a name used for some of the Danish straits, while others claim it to be derived from Latin balteus (belt). From this use, Baltic has been applied to the Baltic countries. Another proposed derivation from the Indo-European root [http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/response.cgi?single=1&basename=/data/ie/piet&text_number=+129&root=config
- bhel] meaning white, shining seems speculative.

The name in other languages

The Baltic Sea is known by the equivalents of "East Sea", "West Sea", or "Baltic Sea" in different languages:
- In the Germanic languages except English East Sea is used: Danish (Østersøen), Dutch (Oostzee), German (Ostsee), Norwegian (Østersjøen), and Swedish (Östersjön); in addition, Finnish, a Balto-Finnic language has calqued the Swedish term as Itämeri, disregarding the geography; the sea is west of Finland.
- In another Balto-Finnic language, Estonian, it is called the West Sea (Läänemeri).
- Baltic Sea is used in English; in Latin (Mare Balticum) and the Romance languages French (Mer Baltique), Italian (Mar Baltico), Romanian (Marea Baltică) and Spanish (Mar Báltico); in the Slavic languages Polish (Morze Bałtyckie or Bałtyk), Kashubian (Bôłt), and Russian (Baltiyskoye Morye (Балтийское море)); and in the Baltic languages Latvian (Baltijas jūra) and Lithuanian (Baltijos jūra). ; Notes # [http://www.lysator.liu.se/runeberg/nfbb/0435.html] (in ).

Geophysical data

The Baltic Sea is a brackish inland sea, the largest body of brackish water in the world. The fact that it does not come from the collision of plates, but is a glacially scoured river valley, accounts for its relative shallowness.

Dimensions

The Baltic sea is about 1610 km (1000 mi) long, an average of 193 km (120 mi) wide, and an average of 55 m (180 ft, 30 fathoms) deep. The maximum depth is 459 m (1506 ft, 251 fathoms), on the Swedish side of the center. The surface area is about 377,000 sq km (145,522 sq mi) and the volume is about 21,000 cubic km (3129 cubic mi). The periphery amounts to about 8000 km (4968 mi) of coastline. [http://www.envir.ee/baltics/geograph.htm] These figures are somewhat variable because a number of different estimates have been made.

Icing in winter

The Baltic sea is iced in winter, except for the deepest regions in the center. Ice begins in the Gulf of Bothnia in October or November. Fast ice, attached to the shoreline, develops first, rendering the ports unusable without the services of icebreakers. Level ice, ice sludge, pancake ice or rafter ice form in the more open regions. The gleaming expanse of ice is similar to the arctic, with wind-driven pack ice and ridges up to 15 m, and was noted by the ancients. The degree of icing depends on whether the winter is mild, moderate or severe. Severe winters ice even the regions around Denmark and southern Sweden, leaving open only a relatively small extent south of Gotland. The ice reaches a maximum extent in February or March. By June it is gone.

Hydrography

The Baltic Sea is effluent through the Danish straits; however, the flow is complex. A surface layer of brackish water discharges 940 cubic km per year into the North Sea. Due to the difference in salinity, a sub-surface layer of more saline water moving in the opposite direction brings in 475 cubic km per year. It mixes very slowly with the upper waters, resulting in a salinity gradient from top to bottom, with most of the salt water remaining below 40 to 70 m of depth. The difference between the outflow and the inflow comes entirely from fresh water. More than 250 streams drain a basin of about 1.6 million square km, contributing a volume of 660 cubic km per year to the Baltic. They include the major rivers of north Europe, such as the Oder, the Vistula, the Neman and the Neva. Some of this water is polluted. Additional fresh water comes from the difference of precipitation less evaporation, which is positive. Despite the influx of salt water in the lower levels, the Baltic is still more of a lake or river than a sea. Tides are negligible. Wave height in calm weather varies between 2 and 3 m. Violent and sudden storms often sweep the surface, due to large transient temperature differences and a long reach of wind.

Salinity

Salinity is much lower than in the ocean, varying from 0.1 percent in the north to 0.6-0.8 percent in the center. Below 40-70 m, it can be as much as 1.5-2.0 percent. A lateral salinity gradient also exists from most saline in the northern Kattegat to least saline in the Northern Gulf of Bothnia. The most saline water remains on the bottom, creating a barrier to the exchange of Oxygen and nutrients, fostering totally different maritime environments.

Regional emergence

The land is still emerging from its subsident state, which was caused by the weight of the last glaciation. Consequently, the surface area and the depth of the sea are diminishing. The uplift is about eight millimetres per year on the Finnish coast of the northernmost Gulf of Bothnia .

Geographic data

Subdivisions

The northern part of the Baltic Sea is known as the Gulf of Bothnia out of which the northernmost part is referred to as the Bay of Bothnia. Immediately to the south of it lies the Sea of Åland. The Gulf of Finland connects the Baltic Sea with St. Petersburg. The Northern Baltic Sea lies between the Stockholm area, southwestern Finland, and Estonia. The Western and Eastern Gotland Basins form the major parts of the Central Baltic Sea. The Gulf of Riga lies between Riga and Saaremaa. Bay of Gdańsk lies east of the Hel peninsula on the Polish coast and west of Sambia in Kaliningrad Oblast. Bay of Pomerania lies north of the islands of Usedom and Wolin, east of Rügen. Bornholm Basin is the area east of Bornholm and Arkona Basin extends from Bornholm to the Danish isles of Falster and Zealand. Between Falster and the German coast lie the Bay of Mecklenburg and Bay of Lübeck. The westernmost part of the Baltic Sea is the Bay of Kiel. The three Danish straits, the Great Belt, the Little Belt and The Sound (Öresund) connect the Baltic Sea with the Kattegat bay and Skagerrak strait in the North Sea. The confluence of these two seas at Skagen on the northern tip of Denmark is a visual spectacle visited by many tourists each year.

Land use

The Baltic sea drainage basin is roughly four times the surface area of the sea itself. About 48% of the region is forested, with Sweden and Finland containing the majority of the forest, especially around the Gulfs of Bothnia and Finland. About 20% of the land is used for agriculture and pasture, mainly in Poland and around the edge of the Baltic sea proper, in Germany, Denmark and Sweden. About 17% of the basin is unused open land with another 8% of wetlands. Most of the latter are in the Gulfs of Bothnia and Finland. The rest of the land is heavily populated.

Demographics

About 85 million people live in the Baltic drainage basin, 15 within 10 km of the coast and 29 within 50 km of the coast. Around 22 million live in cities, defined as centers of over 250,000. 90% of these are concentrated in the 10 km band around the coast. Of the nations containing all or part of the basin, Poland includes 45% of the 85 million, Russia 12%, Sweden 10% and the others (see below) less than 6% each.

Geologic history

The Baltic Sea somewhat resembles a riverbed, with two tributaries (the Gulf of Finland and Gulf of Bothnia). From geological surveys it has become apparent that there was a river in the area prior to the Pleistocene: the Eridanos. Multiple glaciations in the Pleistocene scooped out the river bed into the sea basin. By the time of the last, or Eemian interglacial (MIS 5e), the Eemian sea was in place. From that time the waters underwent a geologic history summarized under the names listed below. Many of the stages are named after certain marine animals (e. g., the Littorina mollusk) that are clear markers of changing water temperatures and salinity. The factors that determined the sea’s characteristics were the submergence or emergence of the region due to the weight of ice and subsequent isostatic readjustment, and the connecting channels it could find to the North Sea-Atlantic either through the straits of Denmark or at what are now the large lakes of Sweden, and the White Sea-Arctic Sea.
- Eemian sea, 130,000-115,000 BP
- Baltic ice lake, 12,600-10,300 BP
- Yoldian sea, 10,300-9500 BP
- Ancylus lake, 9500-8000 BP
- Mastogloia sea 8000 BP-7500 BP
- Littorina sea, 7500-4000 BP
- Post-littorina sea 4000 BP-current

Prehistory

History

At the time of the Roman Empire, the Baltic Sea was known as the Mare Suebicum or Mare Sarmaticum. Tacitus in his AD 98 Agricola and Germania described the Mare Suebicum, named for the Suebi tribe, during the spring months, as a brackish sea when the ice on the Baltic Sea broke apart and chunks floated about. The Sarmatian tribes inhabited Eastern Europe and southern Russia. Jordanes called it the Germanic Sea in his work the Getica. Since the Viking age, the Scandinavians have called it "the Eastern Lake" (Austmarr, "Eastern Sea", appears in the Heimskringla and Eystra salt appears in Sörla þáttr), but Saxo Grammaticus recorded in Gesta Danorum an older name Gandvik, "-vik" being Old Norse for "bay", which implies that the Vikings correctly regarded it as an inlet of the sea. (Another form of the name, "Grandvik", attested in at least one English translation of Gesta Danorum, is likely to be a misspelling.) In addition to fish the sea also provides amber, especially from its southern shores. The bordering countries have traditionally provided lumber, wood tar, flax, hemp, and furs. Sweden had from early medieval times also a flourishing mining industry, especially on iron ore and silver. Poland had and still has extensive salt mines. All this has provided for rich trading since the Roman times. In the early Middle Ages, Vikings of Scandinavia fought for power over the sea with Slavic Pomeranians. The Vikings used the rivers of Russia for trade routes, finding their way eventually all the way to Black Sea and southern Russia. Lands next to the sea's eastern shore were among the last in Europe to be converted into Christianity in the Northern Crusades: Finland in the 12th century by the Swedes, and what are now Estonia and Latvia in the early 13th century by the Danes and the Germans (Livonian Brothers of the Sword). The powerful German Teutonic Knights gained control over most of the southern and eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, while fighting the Poles, the Danes, the Swedes, the Russians of ancient Novgorod, and the Lithuanians (latest of all Europeans to convert to Christianity). Later on, the strongest economic force in Northern Europe became the Hanseatic league, which used the Baltic Sea to establish trade routes between its member cities. In the 16th and early 17th centuries, Poland, Denmark and Sweden fought wars for Dominium Maris Baltici (Ruling over the Baltic Sea). Eventually, it was the Swedish empire that virtually encompassed the Baltic Sea. In Sweden the sea was then referred to as Mare Nostrum Balticum (Our Baltic Sea). In the 18th century Russia and Prussia became the leading powers over the sea. Russia's Peter the Great saw the strategic importance of the Baltic and decided to found his new capital, Saint Petersburg at the mouth of the Neva river at the east end of the Gulf of Finland. There was much trading not just within the Baltic region but also with the North Sea region, especially the eastern England and the Netherlands: their fleets needed the Baltic timber, tar, flax and hemp. During the Crimean War a joint fleet of Britain and France attacked Russian fortresses by bombarding Sveaborg that guards Helsinki and Kronstadt that guards Saint Petersburg and destroying Bomarsund in the Åland Islands. After the unification of Germany in 1871, the whole southern coast became German. The First World War was fought also on the Baltic Sea. After 1920 Poland returned to the Baltic Sea, and Polish ports of Gdynia and Gdańsk became leading ports of the Baltic. During the Second World War Germany reclaimed all of the southern shore and much of the eastern by occupying Poland and the Baltic states. In 1945 the Baltic Sea became a mass grave for drowned people on torpedoed refugee ships. As of 2004, the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff remains the worst maritime disaster of all time, killing (very roughly) 9,000 people. In 2005, a Russian group of scientists found over 5,000 airplane wrecks, sunken warships, etc., (mainly from the Second World War) lying in the bottom of the sea. After 1945 the sea was a border between conflicted military blocks: in case of military conflict in Germany, in parallel with a Soviet offensive towards the Atlantic Ocean, communist Poland's fleet was prepared to invade Danish isles. In May 2004, the Baltic Sea became almost completely a European Union internal sea when the Baltic states and Poland became parts of the European Union, leaving only the Russian metropolis of Saint Petersburg and the exclave of Kaliningrad Oblast as non-EU areas. The Baltic Sea starts to get very rough with the October storms. These winter storms have been the cause of many shipwrecks, for example, the sinking of the ferry M/S Estonia en route from Tallinn, Estonia to Stockholm, Sweden in 1994 that claimed the lives of hundreds. But thanks to the cold brackish water where the shipworm cannot survive, the sea is a time capsule for centuries-old shipwrecks. Perhaps the most famous one is the Vasa.

Biology

Vasa Approximately 100,000 square km of the bottom, ¼ of the total area, are a variable dead zone. The more saline and therefore heavier water remains on the bottom, preventing Oxygen distribution to it. Mainly bacteria grow there, digesting organic pollutants and releasing hydrogen sulfide. The bloom of algae is visible from the air. Since most oceanic species use the bottom for various purposes, which is denied over much of the Baltic, the ecology differs from that of the Atlantic. The low salinity of the Baltic sea has led to the evolution of many slightly divergent species, such as the Baltic Sea herring, which is a smaller variant of the Atlantic herring. The benthic fauna consists mainly of Monoporeia affinis, which is originally a freshwater species. The lack of tides has affected the marine species as compared with the Atlantic.

Economy

Construction of the Great Belt Bridge (1997) and Oresund Bridge (1999) over the international waterway of the Danish Straits limited the Baltic Sea to the middle-sized vessels. In meantime, the Baltic Sea is the main trade route for export of Russian oil. Many of the neighboring countries are rather concerned about this, since a major oil leak would be disastrous in the Baltic given the slow exchange of water, and the many unique species. The tourism industries, especially in economies dependent on tourism like for example in northeastern Germany, are naturally very concerned. Shipbuilding is practiced in many large shipyards around the Baltic: Gdańsk, Szczecin in Poland, HDW in Kiel, Germany, Karlskrona and Kockums in Malmö, Sweden, and Rauma, Turku, Helsinki in Finland and Klaipėda in Lithuania. There are several cargo and passenger ferry operators on the Baltic Sea, such as Silja Line, Polferries, Viking Line, Tallink and Superfastferries.

Countries

Main article: Baltic Sea countries Countries that border on the sea:
- Denmark
- Estonia
- Finland
- Germany
- Latvia
- Lithuania
- Poland
- Russia
- Sweden Countries that are in the drainage basin but do not border on the sea:
- Belarus
- Czech Republic
- Norway
- Slovakia
- Ukraine

Islands and Archipelagoes

Main article: List of islands in the Baltic Sea
- Åland Islands (Finland, autonomous)
- Bornholm (Denmark)
- Gotland (Sweden)
- Hailuoto (Finland)
- Hiiumaa (Estonia)
- Kotlin (Russia)
- Muhu (Estonia)
- Öland (Sweden)
- Rügen (Germany)
- Saaremaa (Estonia)
- Stockholm archipelago (Sweden)
- Usedom or Uznam (split between Germany and Poland)
- Valassaaret (Finland)
- Wolin (Poland)

Cities

The biggest coastal cities:
- Saint Petersburg (Russia) 4,700,000
- Riga (Latvia) 760,000
- Stockholm (Sweden) 743,703 (metropolitan area 1,823,210)
- Helsinki (Finland) 559,716 (metropolitan area 980,000)
- Copenhagen (Denmark) 502,204 (metropolitan area 1,823,109) (facing the Sound)
- Gdańsk (Poland) 462,700
- Szczecin (Poland) 413,600
- Tallinn (Estonia) 401,774
- Kaliningrad (Russia) 400,000
- Malmö (Sweden) 259,579 (facing the Sound)
- Gdynia (Poland) 255,600
- Kiel (Germany) 250,000
- Lübeck (Germany) 216,100
- Rostock (Germany) 212,700
- Klaipėda (Lithuania) 194,400
- Turku (Finland) 175,000 Important ports (though not being big cities):
- Świnoujście (Poland) 50,000
- Ventspils (Latvia) 44,000
- Baltiysk (Russia) 20,000
- Hanko (Finland) 10,000
- Ports of the Baltic Sea

See also


- Baltic
- Baltic region
- Council of the Baltic Sea States
- Baltic states
- Scandinavia
- Northern Europe
- List of rivers of the Baltic Sea

External links


- [http://depts.washington.edu/baltic/encyclopedia.html Encyclopedia of Baltic History]
- [http://www.abc.se/~pa/uwa/wrecks.htm Old shipwrecks] in the Baltic
- [http://www.pgi.gov.pl/pgi_en/index.php?option=news&task=viewarticle&sid=4&Itemid=2 How the Baltic Sea was changing] - Prehistory of the Baltic from the [http://www.pgi.gov.pl/ Polish Geological Institute]
- [http://www.helsinki.fi/maantiede/geofi/fennia/demo/pages/oksanen.htm Late Weichselian and Holocene shore displacement history of the Baltic Sea in Finland] - more prehistory of the Baltic from the [http://www.helsinki.fi/geography/ Department of Geography] of the University of Helsinki
- [http://maps.grida.no/baltic Baltic Environmental Atlas: Interactive map of the Baltic Sea region]
- [http://www.envir.ee/baltics/ The Baltic Sea Environment]

Tourism links

University of Helsinki
- [http://www.zrot.pl Zrot : Official Tourism Site Western Pomerania (PL)] (Polish, English, German)
- [http://www.zart.com.pl Zart : Polish Tourism Site Western Pomerania (PL)] (Polish, English, German)
- [http://www.vorpommern.de Official German Tourism Site : Regional Tourist Board Vorpommern (D)] (English, German, Swedish, Polish, French, Russian, Spanish)
- [http://www.ostseeland.de Ost|See|Land - Overview: German Polish- Tourism site (D)] (English, German, Swedish, Polish)
- [http://itameri.kyamk.fi/e.html The Baltic Sea Information Centre] (English, Finnish) Category:Seas Category:Baltic Sea ko:발트 해 ja:バルト海 simple:Baltic Sea th:ทะเลบอลติก

Balts

::For more information on Germans inhabiting the shores of the Baltic Sea see Baltic Germans Baltic Germans The Balts or Baltic peoples (Latvian: balti, Lithuanian: baltai), defined as speakers of one of the Baltic languages, a branch of the Indo-European language family, are descended from a group of Indo-European tribes who settled the area between lower Vistula and upper Dvina and Dneper. Because of geographical isolation, the Baltic languages retain a number of conservative or archaic features. Among the Baltic peoples are modern Lithuanians and Latvians as well as the Prussians, Yotvingians and Curonians, whose languages were extinct in the Middle Ages.

History

The prehistoric cradle of the Baltic peoples was most probably the area around the upper and middle Dnepr river in modern Ukraine. According to some theories that area was settled by a hypothetical Balto-Slavic community; that is, a population ancestral to the modern Balts and Slavs. In the early 1st millennium BC several groups of people migrated from the area to the shores of the Baltic Sea, where they settled between the rivers Pasłęka and Neman. It is probable that this migration gave birth to the Baltic tribes. Several scholars, such as Buga, Vasmer, Toporov and Trubachov, in conducting etymological studies of eastern European river names, were able to identify certain regions of specifically Baltic provenience, which most likely indicate where the Balts lived in prehistoric times. This information is summarized and synthesized by Gimbutas in The Balts (1963) to obtain a likely proto-Baltic homeland. Its borders are approximately: from a line on the Pomeranian coast eastward to include or nearly include the present-day sites of Warsaw, Kiev, and Kursk, northward through Moscow to the River Berzha, westward in an irregular line to the coast of the Gulf of Riga, north of Riga. This homeland includes all historical Balts and every location where Balts have been said or implied to be at different periods of time. The Baltic occupation of Western Russia, for instance, may be dated to the 4th century AD. In the first centuries of 1st millennium, the Baltic tribes settled the area between Vistula and Dvina. Their culture is easily recognizable and most probably they were the ancestors of the tribes of Western Balts (Prussians, Yotvingians and Galindians), as well as Eastern Balts (Lithuanians, Curonians and Latvians), notable during the Middle Ages. In 98 AD Tacitus described one of the tribes leaving near the Baltic Sea (Mare Svebicum) as Aestiorum gentes, or amber gatherers. It is believed that these peoples were inhabitants of the Sambian peninsula, although no other contemporary sources exist. The Baltic culture that remained in the Dneper area, although bore significant resemblance to its Baltic counterpart, was also similar to culture of other peoples inhabitating the forests of Eastern Europe and became almost completely Slavicised between 7th and 10th centuries. In 12th and 13th centuries, internal struggles, as well as invasions of Ruthenians and Poles and later the expansion of the Teutonic Order resulted in almost complete annihilation of the Galindians, Curonians and Yotvingians. The last of the Prussians became germanized some time in 16th century, after the Reformation in Prussia. Remaining cultures of Lithuanians and Latvians survived and became the ancestors of modern countries of Latvia and Lithuania. In addition, and to great extent in contradiction to research on the basis of linguist analysis, genetics-related data has started to emerge in recent years. According to Finnish research (Laitinen et al, 2001) and Richard Villems (2001, Estonia) who have carried out principal component analysis of some major genetic lines, the closest genetic relatives of modern Balts (Lithuanians and Latvians) appear to be modern Estonians and Mari people (autonomous republic of Mari-El in Russia) while Russians and Polish have considerably lesser genetic similarity. This lead some scientists to believe that the people known today as Balts were initially to great extent of Finno-Ugric origin. Thus, the language spoken today by them is a takeover.

Baltic peoples and tribes


- Lithuanians
- Latvians (Letts)
- Prussians
- Samogitians
- Semigallians (Zemigalians)
- Yotvingians
- Selonians
- Curonians (Kursi)
- Nadruvians
- Skalvians
- Eastern Galindians
- Dniepr (Eastern) Balts
- Pomeranian Balts

External link


- [http://www.istorija.net/ Pages and Forums on the Lithuanian History]

References


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- Category:Ancient peoples Category:Baltic peoples Category:History of Latvia Category:History of Lithuania Category:History of Prussia ko:발트족

Old Prussian language

Old Prussian is an extinct Baltic language spoken by the inhabitants of the area that later became East Prussia (now in north-eastern Poland, Lithuania and the Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia) prior to Polish and German colonization of the area beginning in the 13th century. An experimental community involved in reviving a reconstructed form of the language now exists in the Klaipėda region of Lithuania. Old Prussian is closely related to the other extinct western Baltic languages, Galindan (formerly spoken in the territory to the south) and Sudovian (to the east). It is more distantly related to the surviving eastern Baltic languages, Lithuanian and particularly Latvian. The Aesti, mentioned by Tacitus in his Germania, may have been a people who spoke Old Prussian. Tacitus describes them as being just like the other Suebi (who were a group of Germanic peoples) but with a more Britannic (Celtic) language. A 16th century Warmian Prince-Bishop, Marcin Kromer, said the language of the Prussians was totally different from Slavic. During the Reformation and thereafter, other groups of people from Poland, Lithuania, France, and Austria found refuge in Prussia. These new immigrants caused a slow decline in the use of Old Prussian as Prussians began to adopt the languages of the newcomers. Old Prussian probably ceased to be spoken around the end of the 17th century with the great plague. It is called "Old Prussian" to avoid confusion with the adjective "Prussian", which relates also to the later German state. The "Old Prussian" name for the nation, not being Latinized, was Prusa. This too may be used to delineate the language from the later state. Old Prussian began to be written down in about the 14th century. A small amount of literature in the language survives.

See also


- List of Baltic languages

Link


- [http://www.kortlandt.nl/editions/ Frederik Kortlandt: Electronic text editions]—contains transcriptions of Old Prussian Texts
- [http://donelaitis.vdu.lt/prussian/reconstructions.htm Reconstruction of Old Prussian] Prussian language, Old Prussian language, Old Category:History of Prussia

18th century

As a means of recording the passage of time, the 18th century refers to the century that lasted from 1701 through 1800 in the Gregorian calendar. European history scholars will sometimes specifically refer to the 18th century as 1715-1789, denoting the period of time between the death of Louis XIV of France and the start of the French Revolution.

Events


- 1701-14: War of the Spanish Succession
- 1703: Saint Petersburg founded by Peter the Great. Russian capital until 1918.
- 1707: Act of Union passed merging the Scottish and the English Parliaments, thus establishing The Kingdom of Great Britain.
- 1707: After Aurangzeb's death, the Mughal Empire enters a long decline.
- 1715: Louis XIV dies
- 1718: City of New Orleans founded by the French in North America
- 1720: The South Sea Bubble
- 1721: Robert Walpole becomes the first Prime Minister of Great Britain (de facto).
- 1721: Treaty of Nystad signed, ending the Great Northern War.
- 1722: Afghans conquer Iran, ending the Safavid dynasty.
- 1722: Kangxi Emperor of China dies.
- 1733-38: War of the Polish Succession
- 1735-99: The Qianlong Emperor of China oversees a huge expansion in territory.
- 1736: Nadir Shah assumes title of Shah of Persia and founds the Afsharid dynasty. Rules until his death in 1747.
- 1739: Nadir Shah defeats the Mughals and sacks Delhi.
- 1740: Frederick the Great crowned King of Prussia.
- 1740-48: War of the Austrian Succession
- 1741: Russians begin settling the Aleutian Islands.
- 1747: Ahmad Shah founds the Durrani Empire in modern day Afghanistan.
- 1750: peak of the Little Ice Age
- 1755: The Lisbon earthquake
- 1756-63: Seven Years' War fought among European powers in various theaters around the world.
- 1757: Battle of Plassey signals the beginning of British rule in India.
- 1760: George III becomes King of Britain.
- 1762-96: Reign of Catherine the Great of Russia.
- 1763-66: Pontiac's Rebellion in North America
- 1766-99: Anglo-Mysore Wars
- 1767: Burmese conquer the Ayutthaya kingdom.
- 1768: Gurkhas conquer Nepal.
- 1768-1774: Russo-Turkish War
- 1769: Spanish missionaries establish the first of 21 missions in California.
- 1772-95: The Partitions of Poland end the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and erase Poland from the map for 123 years.
- 1775-82: First Anglo-Maratha War
- 1775-83: American Revolution
- 1779-1879: Cape Frontier Wars between British and Boer settlers and the Xhosas in South Africa
- 1785-95: Northwest Indian War between the United States and Native Americans
- 1787: Freed slaves from London found Freetown in present-day Sierra Leone.
- 1788: First European settlement established in Australia at Sydney.
- 1789: George Washington elected President of the United States. Serves until 1797.
- 1789-99: The French Revolution
- 1791-1804: The Haitian Revolution
- 1792-1815: The Great French War starts as the French Revolutionary Wars which lead into the Napoleonic Wars.
- 1792: New York Stock & Exchange Board founded.
- 1793: Upper Canada bans slavery.
- 1795: Pinckney's Treaty between the United States and Spain grants the Mississippi Territory to the US.
- 1796: British eject Dutch from Ceylon.
- 1796-1804: White Lotus Rebellion in China.
- 1797: Napoleon's invasion and partition of the Republic of Venice ends over 1,000 years of independence for the Serene Republic.
- 1798: Irish Rebellion against British Rule
- 1798-1800: Quasi-War between the United States and France.
- 1799: Napoleon stages a coup d'état and becomes dictator of France.
- 1799: Dutch East India Company is dissolved.

Significant people


- Ueda Akinari (Japanese writer)
- Queen Anne (British monarch)
- Marie Antoinette (French royalty and symbol of anti-Revolutionary ire)
- Benedict Arnold, considered a traitor by many people on both sides (United States and Britain) of the American Revolutionary War.
- Johann Sebastian Bach (composer)
- Pierre Beaumarchais (French writer)
- Jeremy Bentham (English jurist, philosopher, and legal and social reformer)
- Napoleon Bonaparte (general and first consul of France)
- François Boucher (French painter)
- Edmund Burke (British statesman and philosopher who supported the American Revolution)
- Robert Burns (Scottish poet)
- Catherine the Great (Russian Tsaritsa)
- James Cook (British navigator)
- Denis Diderot (French writer and philosopher)
- Leonhard Euler (mathematician)
- Jean-Honoré Fragonard (French painter)
- Benjamin Franklin (American revolutionary, inventor, printer, and diplomat)
- Frederick the Great (Prussian monarch)
- Thomas Gainsborough (painter)
- King George III (British monarch)
- Christoph Willibald Gluck (German composer)
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German writer)
- Thomas Gray (British writer)
- George Frideric Handel (German composer)
- Alexander Hamilton (American revolutionary, lawyer, and statesman)
- Joseph Haydn (Austrian composer)
- William Hogarth (painter and engraver)
- David Hume (philosopher)
- Thomas Jefferson (American revolutionary, philosopher, and statesman)
- Samuel Johnson (British writer and literary critic)
- Immanuel Kant (philosopher)
- Wolfgang von Kempelen (Hungarian scientist, pioneer in experimental phonetics)
- John Law (Scottish economist)
- Louis XIV of France (monarch)
- Louis XV of France (monarch)
- Louis XVI of France (monarch)
- James Madison (American revolutionary, writer, and statesman)
- Maria Theresa of Austria (Holy Roman Empress, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia)
- Michikinikwa (Miami tribe chief and war leader)
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (composer)
- Thomas Paine (British intellectual and philosopher who advocated for the American Revolution)
- Philip II, Duke of Orléans (Regent of France)
- Alexander Pope (British poet)
- Francis II Rákóczi (prince of Hungary and Transylvania, leader of the Hungarian freedom war)
- Jean-Philippe Rameau (French composer and music theorist)
- Sir Joshua Reynolds (painter)
- Maximilien Robespierre (French Revolutionary leader and dictator)
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau (French writer and philosopher)
- Friedrich Schiller (German writer)
- John Small, Sr (Hambledon cricketer; the first great batsman)
- Adam Smith (Scottish economist and philosopher)
- Laurence Sterne (British writer)
- Edward "Lumpy" Stevens (Surrey cricketer; the first great bowler)
- Jonathan Swift (Anglo-Irish satirist)
- Tecumseh (Revolutionary)
- Voltaire (French writer and philosopher)
- George Washington (American revolutionary general and first president)
- John Wesley (Founder of Methodism, Anglican clergyman, English reformer, scholar, theologian and writer) See Founding Fathers of the United States

Inventions, discoveries, introductions

List of 18th century inventions
- Industrial Revolution begins
- The Encyclopédie by the Encyclopedists
- The English Dictionary by Samuel Johnson
- Economics by Adam Smith
- Rosetta stone discovered by Napoleon's troops.
- Vitus Bering discovered Alaska.
- James Cook mapped the boundaries of the Pacific Ocean and discovered many Pacific Islands.
- Wahhabism by Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab

Decades and years


- Category:Centuries Category:Industrial Revolution Category:Romanticism ko:18세기 ja:18世紀 th:คริสต์ศตวรรษที่ 18

Kaliningrad Oblast

Kaliningrad Oblast (), informally called Yantarny kray (, meaning Amber region) is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast) on the Baltic coast, with no land connection to the rest of Russia; it is a non-contiguous exclave of Russia surrounded by Lithuania, Poland and the Baltic Sea. As Lithuania and Poland both are members of the European Union and NATO, the oblast is as well surrounded by territories of these organizations. It is the westernmost part of Russia. Its largest city is Kaliningrad (formerly Königsberg), which has historical significance as both a major city of Prussia and the capital of the former German province East Prussia, of which the region remains the core remnant.
- Population: 968,200 (2004) 2004.]]

Politics

The incumbent governor (since 2005) of the Kaliningrad Oblast is Georgy Valentinovich Boos. Up till then, Vladimir Yegorov was the governor.

History

Prussian people

Vladimir Yegorov A thousand years ago this area was inhabited by Prussian tribes of Baltic origin (not to be confused with "East Prussian", a later term meaning German people coming from this area). At this time the current capital Kaliningrad was a town known as Tvanksta. The indigenous Prussians were pagans and the Teutonic order entered the area under the pretext of spreading Christianity. According to the Teutonic chronicles, the centre of Baltic paganism, which was also adhered to by the Lithuanians, Samogitians and various other Baltic nations, was a sacred wood known as Romuva (by XVIII century scribbling and later interpretation close to Roman word "Rome" or by XX centurry linguistic research to baltic stem "rom-us, rom-ybė" - "Romovė" (quiet, sacred place) in the Prussian lands. This may well have been inaccurate because unlike Christianity the baltic religion had no central authority. Altough this is still not surely proven (nevertheless serious attempts exists), and might have varied at different times, as with Christianity throughout history.

Teutonic Order State

Unlike other Baltic nations, the Prussians were unable to establish their own state and thus their lands were quickly overrun by the Teutonic Knights and formed the bulk of the Teutonic Order State. Germans colonized many cities and the German language was dominant in government affairs. The Latvians were also colonised by the order. The Prussians had more nationalistic tendencies, which led to several organised revolts against the Teutonic Order, including the famous revolt led by Herkus Mantas. These uprisings ultimately failed, resulting in the eventual destruction of the original Prussian culture, as the nation became thoroughly Germanised. The Prussian language is known to have survived into the early modern period (16th and 17th centuries) as some Bibles from these periods (after the Protestant Reformation) were written in the Prussian language for people who did not speak German. The west of Königsberg was a centre for this language before it eventually died out. In the 13th century the Teutonic Order as well conquered what is now eastern half of the Kaliningrad Oblast - that area was previously ruled by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Warfare between the Order and the Grand Duchy, however, continued for several centuries (with some interruptions), and many battles took place in this area. The Second Treaty of Thorn in 1466 left western Prussia under Polish control under the name of "Royal Prussia", while the knights retained control of eastern Prussia, although it became a Polish fief. In 1525, the Order's Grand Master secularised the Prussian branch of the Teutonic Order and established himself as the Duke of Prussia and as a vassal of the Polish crown.

East Prussia

vassal Gradually, Ducal Prussia passed to the electors of Brandenburg, forming Brandenburg-Prussia. The elector-dukes freed themselves of their Polish vassaldom in the Treaty of Wehlau in 1660. They established the Albertina University, one of the most important centres of German-language education, in Königsberg (1544). The Hohenzollern dynasty transformed their state into the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701 and annexed an area of Poland known as Warmia in 1773. Prussian kings were crowned at Königsberg Castle, although the area was briefly overrun by Russians during the Seven Years' War. By this point Lithuanians made up the majority of the population in more than a half of what is currently Kaliningrad Oblast (eastern part of it) and significant minorities elsewhere. As a result this area was sometimes called Lithuania Minor. It was, however, not a part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (only the eastern half of what is now Kaliningrad Oblast was briefly ruled by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 13th century, but then conquered it was by the Teutons). The Lithuanians living in Lithuania Minor (Lietuvininks) were Lutherans and not Catholics like Lithuanians in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The four counties where Lithuanian was spoken were referred to collectively as the Lithuanian province ([http://www.istorija.net/kleinlitauen/images/kleinlitauen2.jpg map]). In this province church sermons were predominantly preached in Lithuanian; there were Lithuanian schools as well, but the number of them decreased over time (due to the Germanisation and government regulations). Germans formed a strong majority in the city of Königsberg and the areas around it. Curonian spit and some villages in the east of the Curonian lagoon as well as ones on the coast of the Baltic Sea were inhabited by the Courlandians. Since Germans had been the ruling ethnic group in East Prussia since the conquest of the area by the Teutonic Order, the German language was primarily used by the government. Other nationalities, despite inhabiting large chunks of land, were mostly peasants, while landowners were primarily German. Thus the Lithuanian-speaking areas gradually became Germanised due to the migration of wealthy Germans from other parts of the country into the Lithuanian areas and the fact that the German language was perceived to be more prestigious than Lithuanian. Lithuanian-speaking area was getting smaller over the time; the same could be said about the Courlandian area. In the 18th century Germans already made a majority of population in the southwest of what is now Kaliningrad Oblast and significant minorities in the other parts of the area as well. East Prussia was an important centre of German culture. Many important figures, such as Immanuel Kant, originated from this region. The cities of Kaliningrad Oblast, despite being heavily damaged during World War II and after, still bear the typical German architecture, such as Jugend Style (German form of Art Noveau), which shows the rich German history and cultural importance of the area. Despite the Germanisation, Lithuania Minor remained an important centre of Lithuanian culture. Due to Lutheranism (not as conservative as was Catholicism at the time) being the main religion and as well due to the policies of the government of Prussia, which promoted science, culture and education, Lithuania Minor advanced faster scientifically and culturally than the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (which was a direct part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth). Thus, the Lithuanian national revival at first happened here rather than in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (where there were less educated Lithuanians and Polish language was prefered over Lithuanian). First printed books in Lithuanian language were written and published in Koenigsberg in 16th century; the northern half of East Prussia (primarily Koeningsberg and the cities of Lithuania Minor) remained for long the place where the most of books and periodicals written in Lithuanian language were published. The numbers of publications were increasing and they furtherly increased after the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was annexed to Russia (and especially after the use of Lithuanian language in print and public performance was banned by Russian authorities in the mid 19th century) as then the books and periodicals were printed not only for the local market but as well to be smuggled accross the border. The Lithuanian-speaking population continued to diminish due to further Germanisation and in the 20th century Lithuanians made up a majority only in the northeast of what is now Kaliningrad Oblast, the rest of the area becoming predominantly German-speaking. 20th century.]] When the Nazis came to power in Germany in the 1930s they radically altered about a third of the topology of this area by eliminating all names of Polish or Lithuanian origin in 1938.

Kaliningrad Oblast

The Soviet Red Army entered the eastern-most tip of Prussia on August 29 1944. Rumours of massacres committed by the Soviet troops spread panic in the province and caused a mass flight westward. More than 2 million people were evacuated, many of them via the Baltic Sea. The Yalta Conference of world powers assigned northern East Prussia to the Soviet Union. Sir Winston Churchill remarked that "this part of East Prussia is red from the Russian blood liberally shed for the common cause. Therefore the Russians have historical and well grounded claims on this German area" [http://www.pseudology.org/Pobeda/Kenigsberg.htm]. The northernmost part of the assigned area (Klaipėda region, known in German language as Memelland), which was a part of Lithuania in the interwar period and had been occupied by Germany in 1939, was added to Lithuanian SSR. According to some documents written during the administration of Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet government had planned to make the rest of the area a part of the Lithuanian SSR. The area was administered by the planning committee of LSSR, although the area had its own Party committee. However, the leadership of the Lithuanian SSR (especially Antanas Sniečkus) refused to take the territory mainly because of its devastation in World War II. Instead the region was added to the Russian SFSR and since 1946 it has been known as Kaliningrad Oblast. The Soviet government changed city names into Russian ones and encouraged Russians to migrate to the area along with Ukrainians and Belarusians (see the demography section). After the collapse of the USSR Germans once again began to migrate to the area, especially Volga Germans from other parts of Russia. Almost none of the original Lietuvininks (Lithuanian) population remains in Kaliningrad Oblast. Some Lithuanians were moved into the area from elsewhere after World War II. Ethnic Lithuanians currently comprise 1.9% of the population of Kaliningrad Oblast. During the time of the USSR, the use of the Russian language was heavily promoted. There were no schools that taught in German, Lithuanian or other languages, and few cultural activities for minorities. In recent times the situation has slowly changed as the people of Kaliningrad begin to look back to their past. Germany and Lithuania have renewed contact with Kaliningrad Oblast through twin towns and other projects. This has helped to promote interest in the past and the culture of the East Prussian and Lietuvinink communities.

Administrative divisions

Districts

twin townss).]] Kaliningrad Oblast consists of the following districts (районы):
- Bagrationovsky (Багратионовский)
- Chernyakhovsky (Черняховский)
- Guryevsky (Гурьевский)
- Gusevsky (Гусевский)
- Gvardeysky (Гвардейский)
- Krasnoznamensky (Краснознаменский)
- Nemansky (Неманский)
- Nesterovsky (Нестеровский)
- Ozersky (Озерский)
- Polessky (Полесский)
- Pravdinsky (Правдинский)
- Slavsky (Славский)
- Zelenogradsky (Зеленоградский)

Cities and towns

Main article: List of cities of Kaliningrad Oblast The territory also includes the following towns (old names in italics are German, Polish, and Lithuanian in that order):
- Bagrationovsk (Preußisch Eylau, Iława Pruska, Yluva/Prūsų Ylava)
- Baltiysk (Pillau, Piława, Piliava)
- Chekhovo (Uderwangen, no Polish name, Udravangis)
- Chernyakhovsk (Insterburg, Wystruć, Įsrutis)
- Dobrovolsk (Pillkallen/Schloßberg, no Polish name, Pilkalnis)
- Druzhba (Allenburg, Alembork, Alna/Alenburgas)
- Gusev (Gumbinnen, Gąbin, Gumbinė)
- Gvardeysk (Tapiau, Tapiawa, Tepliava)
- Kalinino (Mehlkehmen/Birkenmühle, Mehlkehmen, Mielkiemis)
- Kamenskoye (Saalau, Żuława, Želvai)
- Krasnolesye (Groß Rominten/Hardteck, Rominty, Raminta)
- Krasnoznamensk (Lasdehnen/Haselberg, no Polish name, Lazdėnai)
- Krylovo (Nordenburg, Nordenburg, Nordenburgas/Ašvėnai)
- Mamonovo (Heiligenbeil, Święta Siekierka, Šventapilis)
- Mayovka (Georgenburg, Sparge, Jurbarkas/Spargė)
- Neman (Ragnit, Ragneta, Ragainė)
- Nesterov (Stallupönen/Ebenrode, Stołupiany, Stalupėnai)
- Ozyorsk (Darkehmen/Angerapp, Darkiejmy, Darkiemis)
- Polessk (Labiau, Labiawa, Labguva)
- Pravdinsk (Friedland, Frydląd, Frydlandas/Romuva)
- Primorsk (Fischhausen, Rybaki, Žuvininkai/Skanavikas)
- Slavsk (Heinrichswalde, Jedrzychowo, Gastos)
- Sovetsk (Tilsit, Tylża, Tilžė)
- Ushakovo (Brandenburg, Pokarmin, Pokarviai)
- Yasnaya Polyana (Trakehnen, Trakenach, Trakėnai)
- Zheleznodorozhny (Gerdauen, Gierdawy, Girdava )
- Znamensk (Wehlau, Welawa, Vėluva)

Demographics

2002

Znamensk are two most important resorts in the oblast. The picture shows an East Prussian town of Cranz (now Zelenogradsk) as it looked in 1920.]] According to the All-Russian Census (2002), the population of the region is 955,300; 78% urban, 22% rural. The Kaliningrad Oblast is the fourth most densely populated oblast in the Russian Federation (62.5 persons per sq.km). 97 nationalities and ethnic groups live in the region, including Russians - 78.1%, Byelorussians - 7.7%, Ukrainians - 7.6%, Lithuanians - 1.9%, Armenians - 0.8%, Germans - 0.6%, Poles - 0.5%.

Symbols

[http://narod.yandex.ru/100.xhtml?kdbg.narod.ru/himn_ko.mp3 Anthem of the Kaliningrad Oblast]

External links


- [http://www.gov.kaliningrad.ru/ Official site]
- [http://www.euronet.nl/~jlemmens/trakehnen.html Recent photos] taken by Joost Lemmens of the Netherlands shows examples of small towns neglected under the Soviet Union around Kaliningrad Oblast. This site gives the Prussian German town names and the corresponding Russian names after 1945/49. It starts out with the gate of the horse breeding stables in Trakehnen, and hopeful signs of new beginnings for this devastated land.
- [http://www.tilsit.com Kaliningrad oblast Town of Tilsit (now Sovetsk) website in English] Category:Exclaves Category:Oblasts of Russia ko:칼리닌그라드 주 ja:カリーニングラード州

Belarusians

Belarusians or Belarusans (, previously also spelt Belarussians, Byelorussians and Belorussians) are an ethnic group of East Slavs who are the majority population of Belarus, also being minorities in the neighboring Poland (especially former Bialystok province), Russia, Lithuania and Ukraine. Noticeable numbers have immigrated to the USA and Canada. The native language is Belarusian, however the majority of Belarusians in Belarus speaks Russian. The prefix "Bela" translates into "White" so these people were sometimes called White Russians though not to be confused with the political group of White Russians that opposed the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War. This name was in use in the west for some time in history, together with White Ruthenes, White Ruthenians and similar forms. Using the form "White Russians" is considered offensive and misleading by many Belarusians as it incorrectly suggests being a subgroup of Russians. The Belarusian people trace their distinct culture to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Rus' and Samogitia and earlier. For quite a long time they were mostly known under the name of Litvins (Lithuanians), which refers to the state of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (Litva, Vialikaja Litva) of which the White Ruthenian lands were part of since the 12th century. After World War I Belarusians had their own state, with varying degrees of independence (Belarus National Republic under German occupation, and as the Byelorussian SSR since 1919, included in